Committee weighs park restroom options

Wednesday

Jan 9, 2019 at 12:01 AM

The city's Parks, Recreation and Quality of Life committee is mulling options for installing restrooms at Freedom Park and Pearson Park.

Estimated costs for restrooms for both parks would run around $274,000, which is in excess of the $232,000 in impact fees available to put toward the projects, according to Director of Parks and Recreation Jason Patin. Restrooms for Freedom Park would cost an estimated $80,000, and Pearson Park's are estimated at around $194,000. The difference is in contractor fees: roughly $24,000 for Freedom Park and roughly $137,000 for Pearson Park. Patin said the price differential is partially accounted for by the fact that the company that put in the splash pad already did some of the preliminary work for the restroom, evidently for free.

The projects have yet to be put out to bid. According to Patin, the pricing is for buildings comparable to the restroom buildings at Leroy Jackson and Petroglyph Parks.

The Freedom Park restrooms are particularly important given the splash pad project, which Patin said is very near completion – although an opening date has not been set as yet. The original idea was for the splash pad to make use of restrooms inside the nearby Kerr McGee Center and, according to Patin, the location for the splash pad was chosen with this requirement in mind.

The thinking now is that the indoor restrooms will not be adequate after all. Patin cited concerns with wet floors and people running around in bathing suits potentially disrupting those using the Kerr McGee Center for other functions. The committee seemed in agreement that because the permanent restrooms will not be built in time for the splash pad opening an ADA-compliant Porta-Potty or Porta-Potties will have to be used at first.

Patin reported that he has been notified that no Tax Allocation Bond funds are available for the restroom projects. Mayor Pro Tem Lindsey Stephens questioned whether funds from the city's general fund could be used instead. The choice to re-allocate funds from other sources, such as the city's general fund, would be at the discretion of the Ridgecrest City Council.

The committee seemed in agreement that restrooms for Freedom Park and the splash pad area are the higher priority of the two. The Parks, Recreation and Quality of Life Committee includes Stephens, Councilman Scott Hayman and Planning Commissioners Jessica Roberts DeHaan and Bill Farris Jr.

Options include funding one project at a time, waiting for more impact fees, or finding other sources of funding. No decisions have been made as yet. The discussion on Tuesday ended with a request for city staff to continue to research the topic.

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